I actually hadn’t been sure before, but I was now. “Yes.”
Matt closed the lid on the trunk. “Well, then, I can track down this address and find out who was living there at the time.”
My chest fluttered with hope. “Oh, could you?”
Matt looked at Hope, and she nodded. He grinned at me, and he was so handsome, so confident, that for a moment it was like looking at Joe. “Sure thing, Miss Addie,” he said. “Sure thing.”
44
matt
Before we found the suitcase, I’d thought that all of Miss Addie’s tales about dead babies and B-24 flights might be nothing more than the imaginings of a partially senile woman with head trauma. But as she filled me in on some of the details of what had happened sixty-something years earlier, I couldn’t help but think what a reliable witness she’d make in the courtroom. She was coherent and exact. She told the story consistently from her own perspective, as an observer and participant. These were memories, not wild permutations of an injured mind.
Preliminary research online to find the address was nonproductive. The town map didn’t even list a Belmont Street. A call to the tax assessor’s office in Cratchatee County on Monday revealed that no property records prior to 1995 were available digitally, but were open to the public in files at the courthouse.
I called Hope. “Are you up for a road trip? I can take Friday off.”
So that’s how we ended up headed to Cratchatee, Mississippi, the following week. We left at seven in the morning because it was a three-hour drive, but the time just flew. Hope and I talked about all kinds of things—movies and music, religion and politics, current events, and even our marriages. When I told her about Christine’s sudden passing, her eyes filled with tears. She reached out her hand,and I took it, and I drove like that the rest of the way, holding her hand.
I told her about growing up in Texas, and she told me about her childhood. I learned that her parents had married late in life, that her dad had been eighteen years older than her mother, and that her mom had been forty-two when Hope was born. Losing her mom had been a huge blow to her, and had left her so sad and lonely it had been easy for her opportunistic ex to take advantage of her.
Hearing how this jag-off had moved in on her when she was at her lowest point made me furious. I’m not a violent person, but I wanted to smack him in the face.
Our conversation flowed easily, covering both deep and shallow terrain, with a strong undercurrent of sexual tension. I was not only attracted to Hope; I also genuinely liked and respected her. She was smart, fair-minded, funny, and empathetic. Hanging out with Hope felt like hanging out with a friend I’d known for years.
My father had told me many years ago that the true test of a relationship was a road trip. All I can say is, Hope and I passed with flying colors.
The tax assessor’s office was at the courthouse, which was located in the center of town. A helpful clerk told me that Belmont Street probably had been located outside of the actual town limits. Many dirt roads had existed in the forties and fifties that were no longer there or had been renamed.
A search of old records on microfiche showed that the street had been located about eight miles west of town and that 14 Belmont had been owned by an Edsel Wortner. Apparently the house had been torn down to make way for a new housing development in the sixties. No current listings for Wortners were listed in the Cratchatee records or any online search sites.
“You need to find some old-timers,” the assessor’s clerk told us.
“Where should we look?” Hope asked.
“Well, there’s the nursing home on Elm Street.”
“Most of the folks in there have dementia,” said a woman wearing a Realtor’s name tag who was doing a title search. She’d been listening unapologetically to our conversation. “If I were you, I’d start with the downtown diner.”
So that’s what we did.
A cowbell jangled over the door as we walked in. Sure enough, a couple of elderly men—one with an oxygen tube in his nose, chewing on an unlit cigar, and the other dipping snuff—sat in the back booth, sipping coffee.
A waitress with long blond hair had her back to us as she cleared the plates from a table. “Sit anywhere you like,” she called. When she turned around, I was shocked to see that her face was creased and wizened, her upper lip long and pleated like corrugated tin. Her monkey-ish face was about fifty years older than the lush mane of hair. The disconnect threw me. I stared for a moment before it hit me: she was a senior citizen wearing a Blake Lively wig.
Hope spoke up while I was still gathering my wits. “We’re looking for some information. We found a dog tag with an address among my grandmother’s things, and we were wondering if anyone here could tell us where the property is.”
“What’s the address?”
I told her. She pulled her mouth to one side as she raked food off the plates into a trash can. “Never heard of that one.” She turned and hollered to the men in the back. “Buster, Willard—y’all ever hear of Belmont Street?”
“Hotchkiss Road used to be called that,” the one with the oxygen said. “My uncle used to live there.”
We headed to the back of the diner and introduced ourselves. The men returned the favor. The one with the oxygen was Buster.
“Can we sit down and buy you a cup of coffee?” I asked.
“We’d be delighted.” Willard scooted over in his booth and smiled at Hope. His large size left about six inches of clearance for Hope. “Our coffee is always on the house, but I wouldn’t mind a piece of that pecan pie.”
